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Category: Opinion

So now here in Copenhagen, apparently traffic experts are suggesting that instead of a congestion charge similar to London’s, in the future we should have a GPS receiver in our cars that transmits our position continuously to the tax authorities. And I’m sure that somebody (who won’t be re-elected and who therefore can’t be held accountable) will declare that this is for the sole purpose of Congestion Charging. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it becomes the law.

Yeah, right. Now I ask you, dear reader: How long do you think it’ll be before this is also used to find the mythical pedophile nazi-terrorists too? I guess that’s ok too, right? But how long before they dig in and allow this to be used by the police to find:

Illegal parking

Speeding

People collecting social benefits they shouldn’t be collecting (Danish: “Sociale Bedragere”)

People they want to check up on and keep track of, just for good measure.

Keeping lists of who participated in which public demonstrations, just for good measure.

And how long before the tabloid press start revealing that reality-star du-jour has spent the night at another reality-star du-jour?

This is a slippery slope. Here in Denmark, we have a “child pornography filter”. Originally that was for child pornography only. But it evolved into blocking The Pirate Bay (because it was proven that pirates are terrorists?), other file-sharing sites and drug spam sites. Its well on its way to being turned into a general purpose SOPA-like censorship filter.

And make no mistake. This is ideal for putting in a database: Who-was-where-when.

Imagine that Hitler gained power today, and measures like these were in place: “Ah, the opponents (I’m sure he’d call them terrorists) met at Freedom Lane nr 17 on Oct 17 at 19.00. Arrest anyone who parked within 15min/200m from this time/place”.

I am scared, actually. Primarily that most people don’t give a damn. Because they think they haven’t got anything to hide.

I have trouble believing, much less understanding, that 68% consider increased surveillance to have had a positive effect for Denmark, 16% believe the effect to be neutral and 16% believe it to be negative.

Wow. The people who believe that our society is better off when the government monitors us more out numbers people like me 4 to 1? Yikes. Has nobody read 1984 or seen Das Leben der Anderen? Doesn’t anybody remember DDR or the Soviet Union? Perhaps China will open source the great firewall too, so we can install it here!